Key Insights

• The considerable ownership by private companies in Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy
• 53% of the business is held by the top 4 shareholders
• Institutions own 14% of Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare

To get a sense of who is truly in control of Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd. (SHSE:688271), it is important to understand the ownership structure of the business. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 35% to be precise, is private companies. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).

And following last week's 7.5% decline in share price, private companies suffered the most losses.

Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare, beginning with the chart below.

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

We can see that Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare is not owned by hedge funds. Shanghai Bodike Investment Partnership Enterprise (Limited Partnership) is currently the company's largest shareholder with 20% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 16% and 8.6%, of the shares outstanding, respectively.

To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 4 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future.

Insider Ownership Of Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our data cannot confirm that board members are holding shares personally. Given we are not picking up on insider ownership, we may have missing data. Therefore, it would be interesting to assess the CEO compensation and tenure, here.

General Public Ownership

The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 23% stake in Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Private Equity Ownership

Private equity firms hold a 25% stake in Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare. This suggests they can be influential in key policy decisions. Some might like this, because private equity are sometimes activists who hold management accountable. But other times, private equity is selling out, having taking the company public.

Private Company Ownership

It seems that Private Companies own 35%, of the Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare stock. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research.

Public Company Ownership

We can see that public companies hold 3.0% of the Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further.

Next Steps:

It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare .

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.